With Elon Musk demanding a carbon tax today, it’s high time to talk about the ‘Great Man’ cult plaguing libertarianism. That includes Ron Paul.

“If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet a Patriarch, kill the Patriarch.”

-Lin Chi, Zen master, d.866

In a tweet this morning, SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk proclaimed: “It’s high time there was a carbon tax!”

Some anarchists on social media were apparently shocked by this. To me, it was basically to be expected.

Musk receives billions of dollars in funding from the state. Why would he not follow the insidious climate change narrative? Why would he not make an about-face on Bitcoin, citing its supposed damage to the environment? Musk has the arm of the state very far up his ass. So much so, I don’t suppose his legs touch the ground.

Hey, Elon, what about the carbon footprint of bombs in Yemen?

Kill Your Idols

Ron Paul sucks. Every Libertarian Party candidate sucks. Elon musk sucks. All your venerated great men suck. This doesn’t mean they never say or do anything good, logical, or honorable. What this means is the moment you decide to outsource your independent thought to someone else, you lose. The moment you want to be on a team more than you want to see clearly, that’s when you’re in trouble.

This, really, is the painful and lonely road of anarchism.

There’s a well-known Zen proverb that says if a monk should encounter the Buddha on the street, he should kill the Buddha. Kill your parents. Kill the patriarchs. Kill the matriarchs. Kill Ron Paul. Kill Elon Musk. Kill Donald Trump. Kill the LP. Kill the Mises Caucus.

The idea is that if you begin to idolize something, you will lose your path, distracted from your own power and original being.

Ignoring that many of the above are not even libertarians or libertarian organizations in the honest sense of the word, the point is simple: the second you realize you’ve made an idol of something in front of you, kill it. Of course this doesn’t mean literal, physical murder, but it is self-defensive killing all the same. Take out the trash. There is no great man. There is no Buddha.

Sorry, but Ron Paul sucks too

I have heard a self-proclaimed agorist — with a large following and well-known podcast — refer to former U.S. congressman Ron Paul’s wife as “the matriarch of liberty.” This poor fellow was so star-struck at meeting the couple, he couldn’t be bothered to hear even one negative word about Ronny.

When I respectfully mentioned the case of Ron Paul using the United Nations to sue his own supporters, the reply I got was, “I don’t care.”

I have no animosity toward Paul. Prior to the 2008 U.S. presidential election, I was marching for him, demonstrating in the streets for him, and yelling at the TV every time the media blacked him out.

His words spoke power into many people’s hearts. Mine too. But eventually, I had to grow up. He was a politician. His salary was paid in extorted funds. He sued his own supporters. If he knew the state was hopelessly evil, why didn’t he quit? This isn’t to ascribe evil intent. It is only to say…who cares?

I am the one walking the path. Not fucking Ron Paul. And the moment I get offended because someone questions this fake Buddha, is the moment I know I’m off course.

Red Flags — The Key to Killing Buddha

If you watch closely enough, all false idols (but I repeat myself) will put up red flag after red flag telling you exactly who they are. What you need to watch for are discrepancies and inconsistencies.

I remember asking now desert-king cultist Adam Kokesh about his presidential run in 2020 via a Facebook livestream. I was concerned about some of the collectivistic stuff he had begun to say. Things about becoming the “custodian” of America and centralized land management. I was pretty taken aback when he brushed me off as a “troll.” I had idolized the guy, prior.

I would soon discover he was a literally abusive, violent, sociopath grifter.

The problem with being starry-eyed over the golden Buddha in the road is you shove down your gut feelings. This puts you in great danger.

People also want to believe the best about Musk. But look at his actions and his words. None of it adds up. He wants a carbon tax, and suddenly thinks Bitcoin is super harmful to the environment. Did he not know how mining worked before, when just a month ago he started accepting BTC for his cars? Why the sudden change? That doesn’t make sense. That’s a big red flag.

Who do I look to, then? Where is the Buddha?
The poor Q folks are still holding on to the idea that old dumpy Trump is going to take over the military and save them. The Libertarian Party puts forth candidate after boring candidate, with dopey, starry-eyed voters swooning over each hopelessly cringe, non-libertarian clown. Some folks even founded a splinter group called “Mises Caucus,” equally full of slimy politics and disappointment.

The dogmatic Christians wait for Jesus to save them while their lives pass them by, and new agers try to imagine money into their wallets with pure intention, because that’s what some jackass on a stage with a Countryman mic told them to do.

On the path of anarchism, there are many guides. Some help you for a time and leave. Some are enemies whose words and actions nonetheless teach you. A few select gems may even be actual friends. But make no mistake. You are alone. The moment you stop offering your sober, impassioned, colorful and unique perspective to those around you because you don’t want to offend or because you want to be on a team, you are lost.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his powerful essay “Self-Reliance”:

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion …Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Kill the Buddha. Kill the “Great Man,” and watch everything around you explode into natural order.